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EPA targets a killer

Soot regulations are welcome

Posted:
12/20/2012 01:00:00 AM MST

Some environmental protection measures have payoffs that are way off in the future, such as reducing the amount the atmosphere will warm by the end of the century. Others yield improvements that are only indirectly related to human welfare, such as making Adirondack lakes livable for native fish.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's new rule on soot pollution is not one of those.

Its purpose is much more stark and immediate: saving human lives in the next couple of decades. Particulate emissions from smokestacks and diesel trucks kill some people and hospitalize others. It can shorten the lives of those with heart or lung diseases. It can also trigger irregular heartbeat and asthma attacks. In all, it is to blame for some 15,000 premature deaths each year.

So the EPA has good reason to take measures to curb this type of pollution, and last week, it did. Administrator Lisa Jackson announced it would reduce limits on particulate emissions by 20 percent, which will make it harder for businesses to get permits for plants and equipment that foul the air.

At the moment, there are 66 counties across the country that don't conform to the new standard, including the Chicago area. But because of restrictions already in place, Chicago and most of the other places will be under the limit by 2020. Only seven counties in Southern California are expected to be in violation.

What good will the change do? By 2030, says the EPA, it should "prevent up to 40,000 premature deaths, 32,000 hospital admissions and 4.

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7 million days of work lost due to illness." Previous soot rules, experts say, have increased the average life expectancy of Americans by a full four months.

Can we afford it? The National Association of Manufacturers says no, accusing the agency of "dropping another harsh regulation on America's job creators." The cost of the new rule, true, is estimated at up to $350 million a year. That sounds like a lot only until you consider the projected valued of the benefits from saving lives and preventing illness: at least $3.7 billion a year.

The EPA's action may prevent some businesses from operating in the areas most affected. But since the new regulation won't come into full effect until 2020, it will have ample time to figure out what to do with obsolete equipment.

Chicagoans have some acquaintance with this issue. Earlier this year, Mayor Rahm Emanuel brokered a deal to close two old coal-fired power plants that were among the biggest local sources of particulate emissions, doing immense damage to health among city residents.

For a long time, the government made allowances for old plants that couldn't meet modern emissions standards. But eventually, the health of ordinary people had to take priority. No one has a constitutional right to spew toxins into the air that we all breathe.

A decade from now, thanks to this change, some people will be alive who would have been dead without it. That's reason enough to proceed.

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